dvd ok cd no good

I am able to play DVD'S fine but when i try to play CD's it will play for 30 sec's then nothing but a loud buzz. I can burn and play DVD great with very good quality but cant burn any audio CD's same thing, will burn and say its finished, but when i put in a player the first 30 sec's and then buzz. now it says device is working properly. a few weeks ago my system crashed and wiped out my hard drive so i put in a new o/s and am putting in all new programs. i also use magic jack and noticed that it was loading in my cd drive now this started when i put in the new system so i stopped using it until i find what the problem is with the cd. I just find it strange that DVD'S play and burn fine but CD's don't. please could use some help.
thanks. Mastiff1

p.s. i'm lost without my tunes

About the only thing that DVDs (and by this I mean movie DVDs) and audio CDs have in common is the physical size of the media. The formatting of the media and the files contained on it are completely different.

So, several things are at play here ...

First off, I believe that the two media use different lasers. So, there's the possibility that the "DVD" laser is working fine and the "CD" laser is faulty. One way to confirm that is to obtain a DATA CD (like a program installation disk) and see if your machine can read that successfully. IF it can't your device simply can't handle CDs anymore.

Second, if you CAN read data CDs, are the music CDs home-made, or are they store-bought? IF home made, format and burning problems are likely. IF store-bought, could be a codec problem.

If you're attempting to listen to the store-bought audio CDs with Windows Media Player, and you don't have the right codec, it should tell you and ofter to find it.

If you're using WinAMP or some other player, you're most probably on your own in terms of hunting down a codec.

thank you for the response! i found the problem, for some reason i lost the drivers for the cd it seems they are different than the dvd and when my system crashed a few weeks ago they got gone. so i went to windows and let it search and it found the missing drivers and installed them and it works fine now. by the way i like the idea of this vista oriented forum great idea! :D

thanks again, Mastiff1